


Welcome to the Pineapple Parade!

by ermengarde



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7819819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ermengarde/pseuds/ermengarde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For reasons that are not disclosed, My Chem are re-uniting to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the release of <em>The Black Parade</em> by learning how to become pineapple farmers on reality T.V.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to the Pineapple Parade!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akamine_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan/gifts), [dapatty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/gifts).



> So, MCRX was teased and the internet fell down a rumour hole and we got to talking on twitter: 
> 
> **Aka:** This would be a great time to create fake rumors about MCR...  
>  **Ermengarde:** agreed. Have you heard that they're all going to be on a reality show, being pineapple farmers?  
>  **Aka:** Would totally watch this show. Or read this fic?  
>  **dapatty:** Gee would be the MOST sincere about it. Ray would be the most chill. Mikey totally zen about it. And Frank? Frank would say fuck it and plant a field of pumpkins instead just to be onery. Dewees wears overalls.
> 
>  
> 
> Much joyful nonsense ensued and I asked m'chums if they would mind me writing it up. They didn't and now we've agreed that it's all Patty's fault :).

The title card – a yellow, cartoony take on the Black Parade album cover – scrolls up, revealing Gerard standing in a bright, sunny valley, with rows of plants and a big “rustic” looking wooden building behind him. He appears to be wearing denim overalls and is smiling earnestly at the camera. The camera is focused very carefully from Gerard’s waist, up. 

Gerard beams at the camera. “So, like, pineapple is a major export for the people who live around here, and we came here to learn about how they grow them. It’s **beep** ing...” Gerard makes a horrified face. “It’s _really_ hard work. And most of the time they hardly get any money for it, it all goes to like the grocery stores and big importers and shhtuff like that. You should buy fair trade.” He nods.

A voice off camera asks tightly if he’s learned anything else. 

“Oh,” Gerard waves his hands at the plants behind them. “Yeah, definitely. Plants are _amazing_ , like, there’s this _smell_ when the rain comes when it’s been really su….AHRG!” 

There’s a flying blur and Gerard falls over. A flash of thigh as he goes makes it clear that his overalls are short-shorts and then there’s a lot of snickering and a lot of bleeping. Eventually Frank stands up, a smear of mud down his face. 

“We also learned that the Portuguese word for pumpkin is abóbora.” 

The voice off camera, which sounds like it’s very close to swearing, asks Frank why they learned that. 

“Because I grow pumpkins.” He grins. 

****

As the filming progresses there are less and less interviews to camera. Gerard either talks about how the only way this show isn’t totally exploitative is if everyone now just buys fair trade pineapples (which is true, but is not a great way to keep the sponsorship from the tinned pineapple people) or about how anyone can grow pineapples if they want to, very earnestly.

He keeps dragging the camera over to see Dewees’ pineapples, which are slightly sickly little things because Dewees is too busy making organic fertilizer to actually tend to them, and saying brightly that look! Even James can grow pineapples! Which…no one can work out if Gerard is alluding to some kind of distressing pineapple incident in Dewees’ past or if he's just impugning Dewees' general farmer-skills (which seems a little mean) and it just makes his speeches more confusing than actually encouraging. 

Eventually the director suggests that Gerard should concentrate on Pineapple-based floral arrangements, which results in him dragging Ray off to find foliage and Ray having to rescue Gerard from a snake.

Frank – when he’s not crashing Gerard’s interviews – doesn’t talk about growing pineapples at all. He’s doesn’t talk about growing _anything_ , not even his **BEEP** ing pumpkins. Frank scowls and kicks stones and complains about the sun and the sunburn on his tattoos and the insects and the biting and the sun.

He gets a ridiculous hat a few weeks in and refuses to take it off so the camera can see his face, so it’s mostly like the crew are interviewing a grumpy mushroom (previously only Gerard’s shorts had been any kind of issue clothing-wise. Most of the guys wore jeans and shirts and it was just a case of making sure none of the shirts were offensive or uncleared advertising. Dewees insisted on wearing overalls, but as he was mostly doing mysterious stuff off camera it didn’t really matter). Even if he refuses to talk about them, Frank’s pumpkins are seriously thriving, mostly due to Dewees’ fertilizer (which is amazing, but definitely the cause of an exponential rise in biting insects in the valley), and they make a pretty backdrop while Frank whines to camera about how utterly crappy various brands of sunscreen and bugspray are. Eventually several companies get in touch with him and ask him to do paid-for reviews. Frank declines because they’re all as bad as each other.

Ray is _very interested_ in all the theory of farming pineapples. He knows all about the nitrogen cycle, and different breeds of pineapple and when’s best to harvest them, and what insects are worrying. He has a _book_ and he asks the farmers that are training them a lot of questions. His pineapple plants are neat and healthy and he is very proud of them. He plays them a lot of songs and composes new ones while sitting on a deck chair in front of his plot.

The weather is doing amazing things to his hair.

Mikey is enigmatic. He smiles, mysteriously, when he’s asked about how he’s growing such amazing pineapples – and he really is… the farmers that are training them keep talking about record-breaking size and amazingly bountiful plants. Occasionally the cameras catch him watering his plants (in full sunlight, although the pineapples never seem to scorch) or stroking the leaves, but he doesn’t even use Dewees’ fertilizer and no one can work out what his secret is. The director is beginning to get squirrelly about it.

The camera seems to be focusing on the dark sky. There’s a glow of electric light coming from behind the camera, which renders the stars almost invisible, but two human silhouettes can just be seen in the distance. The sound suddenly gets louder and slightly crackly like something’s been turned up. There are subtitles.

“…told you, you could do anything you wanted to, Mikes.”

“YOU DID N.” The silhouettes freeze and then huddle closer together. “You never said I could magically farm pineapples with my _ass_ if I wanted Gee. I don’t **beep** ing want…”

“I told you, you could do this show. You’re like, the farmers’ favorite.”

“I wouldn’t be if they knew my ass was doing witchcraft.”

Gerard laughs.

“Geeee.”

“Sorry Mikes. It’s probably like, the warmth? When you sit on the plants?”

Mikey makes a disgusted noise.

The next day, neither of the Way brothers will admit to having had the conversation, even when the director shows them the footage. Gerard starts talking about aliens and Mikey nods and says “werewolves” like it’s not a total non-sequitur. Eventually the crew give up.

_Welcome to the Pineapple Parade_ is not, ultimately, the _most_ peculiar reality show ever made, although the cost of keeping everyone in Brazil for the best part of a year, and flying people home for vacation and meetings, etc. doesn’t really justify the four episodes they eventually managed to cut together from all the footage. The blu-ray however, which is full of out-takes, including the conversation in the dark and a lot of un-beeped footage of Frank, sells well enough that everyone at the production company keeps their jobs.

Sales of fair trade pineapple go through the roof.


End file.
